7-7-7 Tag | Flightless

No, I am not dead. I was so good and did two posts earlier and was a good girl, then missed one, but hey. I can blame Jane for that, as well as thanking her for this tag!

Basically, last week, our mini, ‘Writing Retreat’ was held at her place, not mine, so lots of words were written! Yay! (Although, we normally write fairly well here too…) Over the course of five or so days, I managed to add another 20882 words to my novel. (10K was in a day, so yay! I can tick that off the July list.) But, no blog post. :(

But hey! The stats are looking awesome! *cheers for my Cabin* Keep it up guys!

However, now I am back and shall be presenting a tag to you. I haven’t done one of these since last September, so, I guess it is high time I did one. Here we go. Thank you Jane for tagging me with the 7-7-7 Tag! (And for a bit under a week of word wars.)

It seems fairly simple, and gives me an excuse to have yet another post on Flightless. (You can find more about Flightless here and here.) Basically, I have to go to the seventh page of my WIP, count down seven lines, and then share the next seven paragraphs from there with you guys.

This lovely snippet is from where two of my three main characters meet. And, you know, first impressions are overrated anyway. :P It’s from the POV of Caution when she first meets Glayde.

***

A shadow moves on my right and I lurch to the side, falling against a stall. My heart thuds in my chest as I scan about. I’m sure…I’m certain something moved. The quiet sound of animals breathing is all I can hear when straining my ears. An assassin? Could someone have come to kill father? Or me? I bite my bottom lip, trying to even my breathing out. No one knows yet. The missive will take at least three days of hard riding to get to Ahlonae. I can still race it. Three days for the message to get there, and three days for the reply to get back. I can’t be too late.

My hands pressed against the smooth wood of the wall, I push myself up. No one in sight. The shadow must have been a trick of the moon light. I let a shaky breath out and continue forward, peering into each enclosure as I go. Where are you Farlen? I squint into another dimly lit stall, sighing at the sight of a dapple grey. I suppose any horse would do really. But then that would be steali—

My wrist is seized by a hand and before I can scream, my body swings in an arc over a shadowy figure’s head and into a pile of hay. I choke as a cloud of dust rises and try to yank my arm out of my attacker's grasp, my shoulder throbbing. “I order you to release me!” I hiss as another arm falls over my neck, pressing down, “By the order of her royal highness Princess Caution of Corohan, let me—” I cough as the pressure gets heavier. Blood roars in my ears and dots swim over my vision. What am I thinking? An assassin isn’t going to release me because I’m the princess. I slap at the arm, scratching and shoving against it. I’m going to die. The thought seems dim as my strength weakens.

Suddenly the pressure vanishes and I suck in a gasping breath, rolling away. I lie there, coughing and massaging my throat. A thudding sound comes from beside me and I look up into vividly blue eyes. I open my mouth to say something, then break off coughing again. But that face. It looks so…worried? Surely it wasn’t him who attacked me. A hand touches my shoulder, then the touch turns into a slight pat. I continue coughing.

A shiver runs through me and tears stream from my eyes as I huddle on the ground, reality beginning to sink in. I nearly died. Died. I could’ve been killed. A skin of water is slipped into one of my hands and I fumble at the stopper. The gentle hand from before, so different from the one strangling me, removes it, curling his fist over the piece of wood. I nod gratefully, still half choking as I raise it to my lips, letting the water trickle into my throat. Not that I overly care whether it’s water or poison. As long as it means I can breathe. Because coughing to death is not how I want to die.

The choking subsides and I swipe at the tears on my face. I’m alive. I’m alive. But I nearly died after being out for less than an hour. A trickle of doubt pushes its way into my mind and I grimace. Maybe I’m not cut out for this. Who am I kidding? I’ve only just come of age.

“Thank you,” I murmur to my attacker, and rescuer, “I’m good now.” I look up and start backward. No one’s there. Again. Quiet attacker. Maybe he is an assassin. Glancing around, I relax as I make out the rather small figure, leading a horse toward me. Farlen.

***

Yeeeeup. That is how they met. Not a particularly good meeting if they’re meant to work together for an entire book, but hey! They mostly manage to cope with each other. Mostly. (Mwhahaha)

Well, now what? All of the people I know have probably already had this tag, so I won’t re-tag you. Instead, aaaaaaaaaanyone who wants to can do this awesome tag. I mean, snippets! Who doesn’t love snippets?


How do your characters tend to meet? Are you enjoying Camp NaNo?